Denial (Goblin's Kiss Series Book One)

by Cyndi Goodgame

  Ames chuckled a little, “That’s right, Em. Nice guys are us. Will I assume you will be here daily at this table for lunch?”

  His saying my name like my friends stunned my tongue. “Um...um...”

  Stunned into staring at him longer than I meant to, I realized too late I’d just been caught checking Ames Cahn out in full body detail.

  Scott finally sat and dug into his food offering up, “Yes, she will be. She’s not usually this quiet. Got quite the sarcastic mouth most of the time. This year is going to be very interesting.” He eyed me and then Ames strategically. Another bite or two and his whole meal would be down his throat. Turning the subject over completely seeing I was desperate, Scott showed his non-ending enthusiasm for being a senior. “Awesome. Great. We are gonna rock this town.”

  I mouthed him a “thanks” and he guy nodded back at me.

  Tonya threw a hand in the air for Scott to high five and he did. Ames threw it up there too and both Tonya and Scott copied the gesture. Among the throng of noise around our table, a voice I knew well sounded behind me.

  “Well, well, well. My girl is sizing up the new guy. Let me meet the guy who plans on trying to match up to me,” Rick’s pretty boy voice sounded beside me. Christina popped a kiss on his cheek and headed off to the cheer table near the fence where Ames watched her go. The girl inside me screamed and kicked into a mad fit.

  I watched Rick take my pizza slice and then I checked Ames reaction. My insides told me seconds before that he was gnashing teeth and his face confirmed it. Why was he mad?

  Ames left the glare he gave Rick for me, but it softened. He didn’t show what he copiously thought, but somehow I knew he was really just mad at Rick. Maybe he was just a nice guy inside and all bad boy in appearance. Ignoring them all, I turned back to my remaining food.

  Okay!

  Scott introduced Rick and Ames to each other. After a few tense glances between them, Ames stuck out his fist and bumped it with Rick’s forcing him to relinquish my food back to my tray. They did the manly hem and haw causing even sure of himself Rick to appear relaxed so he sat on the other side of the bench with Scott. Jackson and Laura soon joined us and all were in a fit of laughter over the recent movie theater altered version of vampires vs. werewolves. I joined in forgetting the lingering cloud hovering over me and the boy next to me. I closed myself off to have normalcy. If this was him doing this to me, he’d go away like the others did. I’d shown him too much, but I still had a few tricks up my sleeve if I needed rid of him. Years of running from your freak show self could make a girl tougher.

  First, I needed answers.

  I couldn’t help but see it from Ames’ view. To him, we appeared like an altogether close group of friends starting their senior year of high school in high spirits. What he didn’t see was the sad truth.

  The arrogant butthead across from me was totally focused on how many girls he could bag. That was Rick. Scott was Mr. Football and nothing, I mean nothing, would get in his way. Not a girl. Not school work. Not even his parents eager desire to be included in his future. The coaches let him slide on grades. After all, he was the quarterback.

  Tonya was a great friend on the surface. I was always included. But I was a bauble on her shelf to have as backup for gossip. We both knew this in the back of our minds for all these years, but she was self-centered and I was the freak. Match made in friend heaven.

  And Jackson and Laura. Silent and in love. Which equaled never around.

  So yes, on the surface we were all laughable crazy seniors who met for lunch every day, but it was just that. Lunch.

  A reason to not eat alone.

  We might have all grown up together and gone places together, but we were never really true friends. Real friends come to your aid when bad things happen. Not one person at this table has ever acknowledged that Rick is a royal scumbag and made me look like the bad guy when we broke up. Tonya still considered me giving him a second chance. That’s how little she knows the real me.

  I don’t know what I will major in for college. I just know I need to get there.

  Tuning back in, I heard my name.

  Scott was joking with me about the summer mishap at Six Flags St. Louis where I whooped and hollered at the air because I was the first to get through the ride dry as a whistle just as the machine above my head dumped gallon after gallon of water on my head. I reminded him how I didn’t see the aftershocks even lash against the rock wall after we stepped out of the boat.

  I blushed and ignored the up and down emotions Ames went through as Scott told it. I’d never felt someone else’s emotions so vivid and exact. I could feel his every thought in some ways like reading his mind. He seemed happy for the first time today. It was unnerving and invading. It wasn’t till that moment that I was sure he was reading me.

  AMES

  Before lunch, Emma’s desire spiked up again when the teacher called my name and it was everything I had in me to stifle it down. She griped the table either in pain or something else, her skin sallow. It worried me.

  This girl was dangerous? The king wanted her, but he was afraid of her. Either way, she was on the hit list number one and I was starting to see why.

  I needed her as my partner. I blinked back the amount of power desirable to get the result I required and adjusted the names to where I needed. Illusions were my specialty.

  There.

  The teacher turned around to face the whiteboard where our names were already lined up beside each other now.

  I found all the punch lines that kept banging into me all day and nailed them as truly magical or something. No one had this many coincidences.

  A quick assessment told me she wasn’t unintelligent though I’d already seen as much. She tapped her pencil then stopped. I’d already decided that I would try to give her some peace one day for that coping mechanism.

  She sang her words out thinking she’d evaded me once more to the teacher’s seating arrangement. No can do, babe.

  She folded her arms and pouted when he told her it would stay as is. I liked that look on her. Especially since she was upset by the outcome, but really just the opposite. I could feel how she really felt and that made me all the more curious.

  Her friend said something to her and she huffed again.

  Ring!

  Class ended and out they went. Well, everyone went with me last. I confirmed lunch with Scott in the hall and headed to the bathroom for a quick pit stop. All the way, I couldn’t help but think her friends weren’t the most honorable, loyal bunch but is the only way to see her at the moment.

  I’d heard Scott telling a dude in a football jersey to come get him early from lunch so they could roadblock the freshmen trying out for this year’s team. He said this with a bottle of cheese whiz in his hand.

  Her friend Tonya told the girl behind her in class that she would meet her at the mall. When the other girl gave a crazed looked in Emma’s direction and asked if she would be there, Tonya evaded the question with her not liking the mall. I distinctly remember finding out that Emma worked at the mall.

  I saw and felt her through the outside door before we came through it. She bit through the Fuji and found me in front of her. Boy, she was not easy to surprise with this emotional magic crap. At least I have confirmation she feels it too. Her pupils were dilated and glittery.

  Let’s see what else I can conjure out of her.

  “Hi Emma,” I said smoothly. “Tonya.”

  I nodded to Emma and explained my invasion of their lunch. The Fuji was sweet. Ripe. Reminded me of her mother’s repetitious apple baskets when I was very young. I don’t remember her, just the apples.

  Stunned, she looked to Scott for help on evading me, but got none. She smoothed out her tightened forehead and brought up a great fake smile and told her friend some silky girl answer to make me squirm. She didn’t know me to well. She batted her pretty eyes and told me lots more than that she’d just made up what she said.

  Some guy came u
p beside Emma during this masquerade. I had the sudden feeling to throw my hands around her and protect with an iron grip but that would not be considered normal and that’s what she was going for. The Christina slut popped a bubble with her gum and kissed the guy’s cheek before heading off to the table with the others like her.

  I saw that Emma watched me watch this and saw the jealousy spike inside for something she had very wrongly interpreted. The vile creature called Christina had bad vibes centered all the way around her and I wanted her far from Emma. Emma did however sense my emotions, which was still very odd for me. I could tell she was reading me on purpose. My own heart rate spiked aligned with hers.

  The boy, not a man by any means, whom Emma detested openly left a bittersweet glare for me but I couldn’t hold the glare when my eyes went back to check on her. She was better, calmer, if my eyes were on her. And that was way more interesting to me.

  When I checked for danger or anything that might hurt this girl, I found none and settled back on my food.

  Scott introduced Rick to me and all was great when I did the generic guy things and stuck out my fist in his direction. One good fake smile later, this moron was sitting and staring at Emma. A lot. She seemed to notice this very little so I concluded what it could be construed as and left it alone. They had a history. He was an idiot. She had moved on.

  Scott told several stories but I stayed focused on any bit of news involving Emma Steele. She blushed when he talked about her but not the same way she reacted to me. She was all cute and sweet with him in a fake way, not really appreciative of his attention. She was all heat and desire with me. Hmm! I’d never felt someone else’s emotions so clear and targeted like an inner speech. I could feel her every thought in some ways like reading her mind. It was unnerving.

  Could I just be gaining powers because she is the princess or was there something else?

  PART TWO

  EMMA

  After the lunch I had one class left. My last elective. I chose Mythology because it was the only class left that I hadn’t taken that didn’t include math, my least favorite.

  Footsteps. I saw a flash of a cheer skirt. Miss Evil herself.

  “Emma.” Christina’s voice peeved me off sounding so smooth. But I knew where her claws could end up.

  “Christina.”

  “I saw you with the new guy again at lunch.”

  Great. Menacing stalker girl is ringing on my doorstep too. “I gotta go.”

  “I just wondered if Ames talked about me with you while eating his apple. If he was trying to find out info on me or something. It’s so sweet we both love the same foods.”

  Not hardly. And it was just an apple. “No. He was a arrogant rude—

  “Ohhhh. That hot. Knew you were giving him the eye too. Game on then.” And with that, she pranced off.

  “I—

  I was matched by my retreating steps when a familiar set of boots fell in sync with mine. Uh oh! Did he hear?

  “Wait up, Emma Steele.”

  “Why should I, Ames Cahn?” I challenged deciding he was already taking up too much space in my mind and here he was invading my actual physical space again. The girl inside me leapt for joy and did a cartwheel, but I told her to SHUT THE CRAP UP!

  “You shouldn’t,” he came back. I realized then I was the prey and had totally negated my original plan.

  “Okay, I’m game. Why not?” I poked his chest reverting back to the way I acted with other boys. He wasn’t any other boy. He wasn’t a boy at all!

  He watched my finger back away and smooth out my shirt to keep it busy and off of him. His easy smile was completely gone replaced by hard edged warning.

  “Emma, you don’t know what you’re asking for?”

  Nope. But I needed answers. “Yet here you are, catching up to me, who mind you, was walking away from you.”

  “Emma,” he stretched my name out like he was trying it out on his tongue for the first time. I saw inside his mouth the way his tongue laid down across his bottom teeth when he said it. It sent shivers up and down me twice. I blinked once. Twice. Help me, please!

  His own short of breath blinks came out when my eyes opened. His eyes glowed with understanding. I froze not for the first time today.

  “You feel it too Emma.”

  “Why do your eyes do that at some times and not all the time?” I wondered aloud. Did I just ask that? Instinct kicked in and my hand covered my mouth to shut off the comebacks.

  “You’re not ready for that knowledge yet,” he said roughly. That made me realize what it was about his eyes that stood out more than the color. Unlike the other guys his age, his eyes showed experience and age. He had either been down a long road of life already or he’d been thrown into something too heavy for his young age. I shoved it in the later theory knowing he was underneath the same kind of mask I might be veiling myself from. Just like me, but not hidden in the shadows of a human family in a human life. He was outside that box somehow.

  He watched me so intensely even now. I was definitely the prey. And the predator was making himself well known to me. It scared me. It excited me.

  “Then what am I ready for, Mr. Mystery.” I pointed my finger again threatening it against him. “I know you know more than you’re saying. I know you are not telling me something. I can feel the fear that’s moving from your mind and down through you. You deny it though. I don’t know why.” I narrowed my eyes in wait for my admission. He was too friendly and I didn’t want him to see he affected me. And I sure as heck didn’t affect him the same way.

  “Well, speech time with Emma. I love the mystery title by the way. It fits. And I’m not always arrogant, just when it times well.”

  He did hear. And he just walked away from me. As if!

  I had to jog to catch up to him. “Oh.no.you.don’t, Ames Cahn. I don’t know who you think you are showing up here, but you have to tell me what you know. I can’t stand it anymore.” Heck, I sounded desperate.

  He turned to me now. “I can’t tell you that yet, Emma.”

  “What can you tell me, Ames?” I found it easy to say his name. He seemed to enjoy saying mine.

  Just then, my phone buzzed. I looked at the accursed text.

  Rick.

  U STL MY GRL

  I erased the text and rolled my eyes.

  He took a sharp breath. “Emma, you are a very talented girl who needs to be patient. I can’t tell you what you want to know right now, but I can give you one thing,” he came closer to me. His hand moved slowly up my arm and lingered on the edge of my sleeve. Then it skimmed against my cheek with the back of his fingers brushing my jaw line and then...coldness.

  I didn’t even know I shut my eyes. When I opened them, he was gone. Compliments were few and far between lately, so hearing his threw me off my balance. I couldn’t react the right way to them. And I was for sure very un-talented.

  My heart was a freaking mess.

  Ugh, I didn’t want to think about him. His playfulness and then abrupt stoppage was grating on me. Sure, he just wanted to be freaky friends. I knew this by the way he always pulled back just before he crossed the line into territory that would make me a swoon sap-happy walking hormone. I was fully aware of this disappointing fact and hated him more for it. What was worse was why I cared in the first place. Something weird happened when I touched him and I was still denying it.

  I was completely shaken and out of sorts for class, but I went.

  After class, I went by home to change and then off to work. I was on work schedule for senior year and therefore got off school at one o’clock.

  I parked in the outer parking lot of the Townwest Mall. I spent my first hours organizing clothes and cleaning out dressing rooms. I didn’t hate my job, but it reminded me daily that there were better things out there.

  Well, except the frappes and cinnamon rolls. They were my Wednesday treat. And since today was Wednesday, treat day was here.

  I stood in line thinking back over the oddn
ess of the day. I wanted like anything to see Mr. Mysterious Ames again. I tried to convince myself it was to get answers, but there where underlying reasons. Reasons I would just keep denying. I didn’t need another failed relationship and I am still sticking with my senior year resolution, no boys. Especially ones that came wrapped in danger like me. Mr. Ames Cahn wasn’t helping that rule.

  It was a pipedream to think someone could show up out of thin air and want me. Like me. Pursue me. He was here for something else, I just didn’t know what.

  I finished the night out and headed home. In the driveway, the darkness loomed around me. I felt uneasy and hurried into the house. I parked on the street since I was always the first one home. My stepparents parked in the driveway.

  Randor walked in with me and headed off to the mini-office in the corner of the dining room where they worked. I’d already said a greeting to him before work.

  Both of my stepparents worked together as teachers at the same school in the next suburb over from where we went to school. When I arrived each night, it was the same routine.

  “Hi mom. Hi dad.” I grabbed a banana from the bowl on the table and headed up to my room.

  Today was only different because it was the first day of school.

  “Hi honey. Enjoy your first day,” Gale asked while sipping her coffee at the bar beside the kitchen. She turned the page of the Danielle Steele book she had in front of her. Get it, Steele. My mom was infatuated with her books since they shared a last name. Don’t think it’s too weird though, she loves Nora Roberts books too.